The Scorpion King 4 has Victor Webster back as our hero. While on a mission with a friend, said friend turns on him. That's because said friend is an evil prince in disguise who is looking to unleash a supreme ancient power. Our Scorpion King Friend (SKF from here forward) can't abide that, so it's quest time, and who better to go on a quest with than a fair blond rogue of a woman (Ellen Hollman), with whom our hero can have all kinds of screwball comedy will they or won't they romance. His Girl Friday this ain't, but after all manner of great cameos, will our hero stop this evil former friend and save the world?
This clocks in at a robust 105 minutes, and I had a hunch that would hurt, but with the robust cast, including two Hall of Famers, I knew I needed to review it for the site. I took one for the team, but definitely, that runtime comes complete with ample padding to harm your sensibilities. I don't really know why though? This is trodding the usual sword and sandal ground, so what was so important in there that they couldn't fit it all in in 80 minutes? And then with the cast, beyond Hauer and Wilson, we also had Michael Biehn, M. Emmet Walsh, Barry Bostwick, and Lou Ferrigno, plus a host of MMA fighters like Big Country Roy Nelson and the great Royce Graci, and WWE star Eva Torres. Yet none of those stars spent much time in the film, so they weren't able to help us over the slow parts as much as you'd hope. What about the action? Good action could've mitigated some of these issues too, but unfortunately that wasn't there either, despite us knowing how great Webster was from the Seagal film A Good Man, and Hollman was from Army of One. I think this had great intentions, but maybe those intentions got away from itself. Sometimes less is more.
We're at 39 movies for Don "The Dragon" Wilson, despite this one not having him in it much--or are we? Two films that were in his IMDb filmography, Siege of Firebase Gloria and Saigon Commandos are no longer listed, and I have him tagged for both. Does that mean he's at 37? Letterboxd also no longer lists those, so I guess I need to remove them too. So 37 for Don, which is also a first that anyone has ever lost tags before. Anyway, after Don did The Last Sentinel in 2007, he didn't do anything until he took a part in Lou Ferrigno's 2012 short film Liberator, and then this in 2015. 2015 squares with when I went on my unplanned hiatus, so at that time we thought we had all of Wilson's DTV films covered. Not only has he since done more films, but new ones appeared in his back filmography, and while some have been taken down from his IMDb, some still remain that need to be covered as well, so even losing the two, the 40 Club is only a matter of time for him. With Rothrock already in, I think it'll be fitting for him to be the fourth actor ever in. Had I not been on hiatus and saw this when it came out, this minuscule part of his would've been a disappointment after the hiatus he'd taken; but I'm watching it now in the 2020s, when he's back and working again, so it's really just adding another tag for him, which, if this film gets us nothing else, that's worth it.
Much further from the 40 Club, our other Hall of Famer is the late, great Rutger Hauer in his 19th film on the site. His role is only slightly bigger than Wilson's, but we've been used to these scant Hauer roles from the site's inception, so this was old hat for us--in fact I think "bait and switch" was originally the "Hauer bait and switch" with all the times he's on the cover but barely in the movie. He does have more starring roles in the past that would be good for the site, but a lot of times they close in on that 2-hour mark. Considering it's Hauer, I could probably suck it up. Watching this in 2015 we didn't know we only had 4 years left with Hauer, but he left an indelible legacy, and it will be good for us to go through the ones on the site that fit with what we do here. He made the Hall of Fame based on his reputation with those films, even if I hadn't covered them yet. Truly one of the best to do it, Mr. Hauer will be missed.
Another big name in this who we've had the pleasure of covering one time before, is M. Emmet Walsh. Roger Ebert's rule that any movie with Walsh in it can't be bad is seriously put to the test here. My relationship with him isn't as good as that, as I wasn't a fan of his character in the other film of his we've done here, Red Scorpion--which also means we seem to only do Walsh films with "scorpion" in the title--and even joked on the podcast episode we did on that film with Will from Exploding Helicopter that the scene where Brion James burns him with a cigar was an applause scene--and maybe the better one is in Critters when he's thrown out of a house. Could that be a new site, "M. Emmet Walsh Put Through the Ringer"? He's not really put through the ringer here though, at least not that I remember. It's a shame, the film probably could've used him getting tossed onto a full table of sword and sorcery spread with meats and fruits and goblets, it splitting in half under his bulbous weight, the spread collapsing on top of him, and then we cut back to him, disheveled with grapes in his hair and maybe a large leg of some poultry provenance that somehow made it into his hands in the commotion. He looks at it, shrugs his shoulder, then takes a bite and tosses it over his head. Either way, Mr. Walsh, you are one of the greats, and I kid because I love.
Finally, with this being another lackluster entry in the Scorpion King series, what would I do to fix it? First and foremost, there would be an 88 minute rule. Anything longer needs to go back to the editing room. Not only was this one over 100 minutes, but so are parts 2, 3, and Book of Souls. Okay, so we've made them shorter, now what? We need a hero with more personality, and maybe Webster can do it, but not with that hair and that beard, and he needs better material. If we're only rocking with him for 88 minutes though, maybe we don't need as much. We also need a stellar baddie, as the one we had here didn't cut it either. Maybe a Bruce Campbell? But Webster can't cut it with Campbell then, we'd have a Destro Effect. How about Michael Jai White? Just give him this franchise and let him get after it. Maybe have an installment directed by Jesse V. Johnson, and one by Isaac Florentine. Now the action is where it needs to be. If you've got names like those, think of the names they could add: Iko Uwais, Tony Jaa, Scott Adkins, Amy Johnston, Louis Mandylor? Now we have something. Instead of being a franchise that trades on a name for streams and rentals, it could be a franchise people actually anticipate the next installment of.
And with that, let's wrap this up. I think this might still be on Starz, but if not, I would only do this on a free streamer or one you already subscribe to. It's longer than it needs to be, with not enough action, and not enough scenes with some of the great names.
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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